[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Thor

Captain I only have have 3 words for you on judging the series too much on these first 2hrs, FAR POINT STATION

Oh I don't think I'm judging the whole series too early, I'm judging the episode alone, I plan to keep watching and give it a fair shake.

I did finally finish watching the episode late last night. I guess Spoiler tags are needed

Spoiler!

They went for the feels right away killing off the Captain, which fooled a lot of people because Michelle Yeoh was listed for 15 episodes and she was a huge part of the the publicity tour. But this is a show about Michael and not her. However it didn't have a big impact to me, her character and death was a device to send her first officer on her journey. She just didn't come across as a sympathetic enough character to elicit a strong emotional reaction to her death.

I also think its funny that the Federation beamed over a bomb and tried to kidnap a Klingon citizen who was recovering bodies after the battle was over. In the Klingon thought process she did the very thing that she didn't want to do. She acted without honor and created a Klingon Martyr.

I expect that now that there is a state of war between the Klingons and the Federation I would expect that when we see the Discovery that it will be a ship of war and her Captain a ruthless warrior and not a diplomat or explorer.

I wasn't a huge fan of Michael's court room speech, it went against the moment of passion that she had earlier when she mutineed. I would have expected some defiance from her and some conviction, instead we got this sad sad song, it didn't really endear her to me as a character.

I think that they have to re think the Klingon makeup somehow. It was just too heavy monster of the week and we had trouble seeing these Klingon emotions the makeup was too heavy and it really took you out of the state of belief when you looked at them because they looked like dudes in masks. The Holographs of the High Council just looked plain bad, they looked like sock puppets on a projector to me. The strength of the other series and especially Deep Space 9 Klingons was that the makeup left the face free while still maintaining and alien look. But you could see the emotions on their face.

The Science Officers make up was very good because while it covered his face it was flexible enough for him to be able to act through it.

Going back to the shooting of the battle, I just wasn't crazy about it and its something that they can certainly make better I also really didn't like the ship designs for the Klingon's they looked like freighters. The one thing that was always nice in Star Trek was that the Klingons were highly distinct in their ship designs they looked vicious and predatory and even a small ship like a Bird of Prey looked lethal. I do admit that I did like the Federation ship design though.

I tend to think that they wanted the bleakness of DS9 right off the back without the buildup to it that DS9 went through in the first couple of seasons. They tried to do that buildup in the first half hour with the desert planet scene.

Like I said, I don't think it was as bad as a lot of people were worried about. I'm well aware that series like this tend to struggle a bit at the start as the actors find their characters.

Here's hoping that we don't get an episode where this is all taking place on DS9's holo deck while the O'Brien tries to solve a ethical dilemma while observing a historical recording of some Discovery mission.